James first started this website when learning Visual Basic back in 1999 whilst studying his GCSEs. The site grew steadily over the years while being run as a hobby - to a regular monthly audience of over half a million unique developers. In July '08 James left his job as Head of Development at a digital agency in London to focus his energies on developerFusion full-time.
Microsoft have made some significant changes to the look and feel of Windows. For home users, ideas such as user accounts have been greatly simplified. Having said that, it took me quite a while to figure out how to return to the standard Windows 2000-style accounts :- naturally, you can't do it from the 'User Accounts' window.
By default, all the icons which used to be on your desktop, have now moved to the start menu. The start menu itself has been expanded, with a list of commonly used applications, and quick access to Internet Explorer, Control Panel etc. To prevent your task bar becoming cluttered, items from the same application are now automatically grouped. This makes it easier to keep the taskbar managable, but also means that windows are sometimes two rather than one click away. Fortunately, all these new innovations can be disabled if you so wish, and you can also return to an interface identical to that of Windows 2000.
Multimedia
Windows XP sports a whole host of new multimedia capabilities. Windows Media Player 8 is included as standard (and also available free off the internet), handling WMA, CD audio, MP3, WMV playback, Web radio, AVI and DVD. WMP 8 also lets you transfer media to virtually any removable/portable device including MP3 players, Zip disks and CD-R. Windows Movie Maker provides a basic digital editing capability for Windows. Options for managing and previewing your multimedia has also been enhanced. The thumbnail view in Windows 2000 has been extended, with a 'Filmstrip' view, giving you thumbnailed pictures and videos, along with a high-quality display of the current image.
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